We first covered Blippar last June when it gave The Next Web a demo of the app that “brings brands to life”. Blippar sells itself as the first image-recognition mobile platform aimed specifically at brand-consumer engagement, and its latest campaign with Nestlé’s Kit Kat is an interesting use case for augmented reality (AR) technology.

In what is the fourth time the food and beverage giant has tapped Blippar’s technology, Nestlé is enabling fans of the multi-fingered chocolate bar to play virtual football using nothing more than their smartphone and Kit Kat packaging & posters.

Just to recap, Blippar is a free app for iOS and Android devices, inviting users to wave their smartphone at branded products in return for some form of ‘fun’ offering. This latest campaign launched last week and will continue until midnight on 31st July 2012, offering consumers the chance to win a cash prize of €2,012 (£1,746 GBP), by ‘blipping’ the Kit Kat ‘Cross Your Fingers’ logo on packaging and posters.

An augmented 3D table football game ‘overlay’ will be revealed where you try to save as many shots as possible, building a score that will be automatically posted on the game’s league table in a bid to win the cash prize. The winner will be chosen at random via a draw from all the entries received.

Whilst there have been some neat use-cases for augmented reality heralded in with the advent of the smartphone era, there are many folk that question whether AR is too gimmicky to be put to any real use. But as we’re seeing with Blippar, it’s doing a pretty good job of building a solid business from it, and it’s continuing to rack up the big-name brand partnerships having previously worked with the likes of Cadbury and Sony.